1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to fire resistant, insulating panels useful as wall members in the construction of buildings and the like structures.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The building industry has recently been witnessing an ever increasing use of insulating structural panels as wall members in the construction of buildings. A conventional structural panel for this purpose consists of outer metallic skin surfaces bonded to a three or four inch core of a foamed polymeric material such as polystyrene or polyurethane. To date, essentially all of the panels of the foregoing type have been used in the construction of preengineered commercial buildings. Lately, however, considerable interest has been evidenced by the industry in constructing office bulidings, multi-family buildings such as apartment complexes, and even low cost single residence structures, in which the panels would serve as wall members. These contemplated uses of panel construction, however, call for fire resistancy which the conventional panels sorely lack. As a matter of fact, a national code is now being formulated which will serve to specify the degree of fire resistance the panel must exhibit depending upon the nature of the building, that is, whether it will be used for residential purposes or otherwise. A further discussion of this proposed code will be given hereinafter inasmuch as it relates importantly to the salient objective of the present invention.
Accordingly, there is an emerging industry need for a structural panel construction which will conform to certain mandated fire resistance properties. But at the same time such construction must not increase the cost of constructing the panel intolerably or materially add to its weight as presently designed. And above all, such construction must not involve an assembly procedure incompatible with the production methods now practiced in manufacturing conventional panels. It is therefore the object of this invention to provide structural panels meeting the foregoing desiderata.